Still Playing With Portraits

What I've been drawing today ... a portrait to be painted

I've signed up for Life Book, which is a year-long course, with fourteen or fifteen different teachers, offered by Tam at Willowing. I'm hoping that this will help keep me motivated and interested in doing artwork for the entire year. I haven't completed any paintings for the course yet (I'm also taking Fabulous Faces) because I've been away from home and haven't had my paints with me (I'll have access to them later this week), so I have several sketches completed and ready for paint, but I've been unable to add color and finish them. 

The greatest benefits I've received from the Life Book course so far have been: 

• One, just getting my pencil moving and my hands working with art tools and materials again, after months of not wanting to do artwork, and 
• Two: Working on watercolor paper as a substrate. For some reason, I have resisted working on paper in the past and wanted to work on something more "permanent" like wood, canvas boards, and journal covers. The problem with that is that it made me afraid to work, I think, because it felt so "serious." Working on heavy watercolor paper instead, and storing my work in a decorative box, as suggested in the course, has been freeing because I don't have to take every piece so seriously. I can rotate the work I have on display at any given time, and store the rest away for sharing when I want to. The paper is heavy enough to frame, give away, sell, or bind into a book (as will be done with all the lessons at the end of the course). 

I don't have to take everything I create so seriously, 

and I can just PLAY.